Posted by Rattle:

The following poem was written by Karol Wojtyla when he was in his 20's, during the war. It was a time when friends, colleagues, and teachers were being shipped off to concentration camps. His father, who he was extremely close to, had recently passed away. Karol had escaped imprisonment and death at the hands of the Germans several times by this point, and was working in the inhuman conditions of a rock quarry to avoid deportation. This poem recounts when a fellow worker standing next to him was killed. Several miles away, untold numbers of people were being put to death in bulk at Auschwitz. Several years later, he would enter the priesthood.

The Quarry

He wasn't alone.
His muscles grew into the flesh of the crowd, energy their pulse,
As long as they held a hammer, as long as his feet felt the ground.
And a stone smashed his temples and cut through his heart's chamber.
They took his body and walked in a silent line
Toil still lingered about him, a sense of wrong.
They wore gray blouses, boots ankle-deep in mud.
In this, they showed the end.
How violently his time halted: the pointers on the low voltage dials jerked, then dropped to zero again.
White stone now within him, eating into his being, taking over enough of him to turn him into stone.
Who will lift up that stone, unfurl his thoughts again under the cracked temples?
So plaster cracks on the wall.
They laid him down, his back on a sheet of gravel.
His wife came, worn out with worry; his son returned from school
Should his anger now flow into the anger of others?
It was maturing in him through his own truth and love
Should he be used by those who came after, deprived of substance, unique and deeply his own?
The stones on the move again; a wagon bruising the flowers.
Again the electric current cuts deep into the walls.
But the man has taken with him the world's inner structure, where the greater the anger, the higher the explosion of love.

The Quarry, by Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II)

] Christianity: 2 billion
] Islam: 1.3 billion
] Hinduism: 900 million
] Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 850 million
] Buddhism: 360 million
] Chinese traditional religion: 225 million
] primal-indigenous: 150 million
] African Traditional & Diasporic: 95 million
] Sikhism: 23 million
] Juche: 19 million
] Spiritism: 14 million
] Judaism: 14 million
] Baha'i: 6 million
] Jainism: 4 million
] Shinto: 4 million

When reading these statistics, the number I found most surprising was the relative tininess of the world's Jewish population (14 million) in comparison with other major world religions (1 billion-plus). For some reason I'd thought it was a larger religion, perhaps because I know so many people of that faith. It made more sense as I dug deeper though, since approximately half of the world's Jews (about 6 million) live in the U.S., half in Israel, and the next largest percentage is listed simply as "Europe".

It puts some of the conflicts in the Middle East into a different perspective for me though. That the world's first two largest religions, Christianity and Islam, should seem to be so distracted -- even obsessed -- with a religion that is 1% of their size.

I also found interesting the listed quantity of non-religious people in the world, 850 million. Though it's worth keeping in mind that the number is probably somewhat skewed by the state-enforced atheism of China's 1+ billion inhabitants. With China included in the numbers, the world's population breaks down to about 80-85% religious, 15-20% atheist. Removing China from the mix though, a more common percentage around the world seems to be 97% religious, 3% non-religious. Perhaps 90-10, depending how agnostics are categorized.

Major Religions Ranked by Size

] The following article provides all the details on the process
] of electing a new pope, from the moment of the current
] pontiff's death to the moment a new pope is proclaimed
] to the waiting world.

I still wish the best to Pope John Paul II (aka Karol Jozef Wojtyla), and hope for a recovery.

But in the meantime, this is interesting reading. It even includes some of the sayings and humor about papal elections, as well as the ritualistic anti-cheating methods during the voting.

How the Pope is Elected - ReligionFacts.com

] circa 1200
]
] A Christian monk handwrites prayers in Greek over the
] Archimedes text, turning the old mathematical text into a
] new prayer book. The book is now a palimpsest, a
] manuscript with a layer of text written over an earlier
] scraped- or washed-off text (see What is a Palimpsest?).

This is an interesting link that was sent to my Kryptos brainstorming group. We've long been curious why "Palimpsest" was one of the keywords for solving one of the Kryptos sections, and whether it might give a clue for solving part 4. This information about Archimedes is intriguing. See the link, which includes some animations showing how one text was erased, the page was then turned 90 degrees, and another text written on top. The "90 degree twist" idea would completely change the part 4 ciphertext if we were to read things vertically. Hmmm...

The Archimedes Palimpsest

Decius wrote:
] Elonka wrote:
] ] In any case, we have such a relatively small community here.
] ] When I check the "who's posting" calendar at User Weblogs, I
] ] see there are several posts per day, but that's not exactly
] ] slashdot traffic. :)
]
] Well, I know this is an aside but one shouldn't assume the
] number of readers is related to the number of posters. There
] are many more lurkers here. Your MemeStream in particular is
] enormously popular. Over 5000 views so far this month. Mine
] only had 300 or so, and many of those are probably me.

Oh absolutely. :) Within my own communities, I find that it's usually a 10-1 ratio (on average) of regular readers to regular posters.

5000 though, eh? I'd love to see some sourcing data on that. Are they linking in from google, or coming in straight? If it's anything like my website(s), most are probably coming in from searching on Kryptos and "Da Vinci Code" stuff.

RE: 'Diabesity,' a Crisis in an Expanding Country

noteworthy wrote:
] To the extent you think about America's global competitiveness
] in the decades ahead, you fixate on our ability to fabricate
] the best techno-gizmos, music, and movies.

I'm not quite sure how to respond to your post. You seem to be attacking a general stereotype of the entire tech community, but in that case, who exactly are you expecting to respond?

In any case, we have such a relatively small community here. When I check the "who's posting" calendar at User Weblogs, I see there are several posts per day, but that's not exactly slashdot traffic. :)

I've also posted several things that I was surprised that no one memed or replied to. But I don't feel that I was ignored. I'm pretty sure that most of what I post does get read by most of the more frequent meme-ers here. We just have different threshholds of what we find interesting or reply to. For example, I rarely follow the "two-headed frog" or "kitten found abandoned in tree" threads.

Health posts, I've been following. I saw your other obesity posts, and agree with them. Yes, obesity is a crisis in our country. The numbers I've been seeing in the health magazines are actually higher than what you found -- More like 75% of our country is overweight or out of shape, not 60%. It's something that I think about when I go to the gym, and look around at the other folks on the treadmills and exercise bikes -- in one way of looking at it, we're like the "133t" of the country, the small percentage who are trying hard to live healthy.

I went for my annual checkup a couple weeks ago. The doctor actually looked bemused as he went over my numbers and lifestyle checklists: "You don't smoke, you drink in moderation, you're eating the right proportions of protein, fat, and carbohydrates, you're exercising regularly, your cholesterol, LDL and HDL are all within normal ranges... You're living a healthy lifestyle, good job!" I got the feeling that he doesn't get to say that often, and that it was unusual for him to get through a patient visit without having to repeat a mantra of, "You need to stop smoking / cut back on fatty foods / exercise more". I feel like most doctors have given up on actually being listened to in this regard: That they feel like they're being treated like the kid who's crying wolf, and no one's taking them seriously.

So in any case, yes, I agree with you. But no, I don't think the new reports are going to change behaviors. But yes, obesity rapidly *is* becoming the #1 *preventable* cause of death in our country.

As for where to place the blame, I agree that everyone has a personal responsibility to take care of their own lifestyle, but I also think that fast food chains and heavy marketing share a lot of the blame. I mean, if McDonald's *really* wanted to promote a healthier lifestyle, they'd put those promotional "instant win" stickers on the salads and fruit plates, not just on the fries and burgers, right?

RE: 'Diabesity,' a Crisis in an Expanding Country

] Blessed Raphael Kalinowski of St. Joseph, a Polish
] Discalced Carmelite, was canonized November 17 1991 by
] Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Basilica. He is held by
] many to be the precursor of and model for the modern lay
] apostolate and as an architect of peace, culture and
] unity among Christians. We celebrate St. Raphael
] Kalinowski's feast day on November 19th.

This is the first I've heard of an actual feast day for him. I'm also blogging this since it's got the most detailed (online) biography I've found about my great-uncle thus far.

I'm still trying to track down information on the (minimum) 2 miracles that have to be documented for someone to be sainted. As I understand it, these things are supposed to be investigated very thoroughly, but I have not yet been able to find much information on them.

It's been an eye-opening investigation though. Normally I surf through webpages of art and math and science and cryptology. I haven't before had a reason to surf through religious webpages, but there's actually quite a bit of interesting stuff out there.

Raphael Kalinowski

] Raffaele Kalinowski, O.C.D. (1835-1907)

I figured this would be an appropriate thing to blog for this Easter weekend... From the Vatican website, a painting of my great-great-grandfather's brother, born Joseph Kalinowski. Mathematics teacher, railway engineer, Minister of War, royal tutor, Priest, and as of 1991 by the order of Pope John Paul II, Saint.

Painting of Saint Raffaele Kalinowski, O.C.D. (1835-1907)

] Topix.net was founded in 2002 with the specific mission
] of providing users the ability to quickly and easily find
] targeted news on the Internet.

I'd been looking for something like this. A sort of "Google News" that I can use to only get articles that are relevant to my local geographical area.

Google News is great, but one of the problems with it is that I found I was becoming far more informed on global issues than local ones. For example, when I vote in local elections, my individual vote carries a lot more weight on local issues than national, and since I'm often oblivious to some of the local stuff, that's made it harder to vote wisely.

This way I can type in my zip code to Topix, and get a summary of *local* headlines. Nice. :)

Now I just need to find a blog / message board forum that I like, where I can communicate with my local peers about some of these issues. Hmmmm... Interesting challenge. First the internet connects us to a larger world, and now comes the challenge of being connected to the world, without losing sight of local nearby issues. Sort of like being able to be both farsighted and nearsighted, at the same time!

Topix.net - A news aggregator for local news

Interesting article about the life of Dan Brown, author of "The Da Vinci Code". It sounds about right, in terms of how he's gone into a virtual bunker. I used to be able to correspond with him via email and even talk on the phone about Kryptos, but over the last several months, I've only been able to get through to his assistant. I'm still dying of curiosity though as to whether (or how much that) Kryptos is going to factor into his new book (and whether or not my name will be one of the ones in the long list on the "thank you" page).

Making notes for myself from the article (in case it gets lost to web rot):

"The Da Vinci Code," released on 3/18/2003, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list on 4/6/2003, and has sold "roughly" 25 million copies in 44 languages, including 10 million copies in North America.

Brown's earlier novels have now sold more than 7 million copies.

Doubleday's original contract with Brown was for $400,000 for two books, of which "Da Vinci Code" was the first. The contract has since been renegotiated (probably for millions).

Brown has probably earned about $50 million from the sales of his books.

The manuscript for the next book may not be ready until 2006 (this pushes it back at least a year from previous reports).

Brown can evidently be seen in the audience of an Aerosmith concert scene in the new movie "Be Cool".

And this bit gave me a chuckle:

] "In some ways, my life has changed dramatically," Mr.
] Brown said, as when he arrived at the airport in Boston
] to catch the shuttle to La Guardia Airport - only to
] realize that he had left his driver's license at his home
] in New Hampshire. "Fortunately, the guy behind me in line
] had a copy of 'Da Vinci Code,' " he said. "I borrowed it,
] showed security the author photo and made my flight."

LOL! So now a bookjacket counts as a federally-approved ID?

For 'Code' Author, 24 Months in a Circus